• Hi, I am the owner and main administrator of Styleforum. If you find the forum useful and fun, please help support it by buying through the posted links on the forum. Our main, very popular sales thread, where the latest and best sales are listed, are posted HERE

    Purchases made through some of our links earns a commission for the forum and allows us to do the work of maintaining and improving it. Finally, thanks for being a part of this community. We realize that there are many choices today on the internet, and we have all of you to thank for making Styleforum the foremost destination for discussions of menswear.
  • This site contains affiliate links for which Styleforum may be compensated.
  • We would like to welcome House of Huntington as an official Affiliate Vendor. Shop past season Drake's, Nigel Cabourn, Private White V.C. and other menswear luxury brands at exceptional prices below retail. Please visit the Houise of Huntington thread and welcome them to the forum.

  • STYLE. COMMUNITY. GREAT CLOTHING.

    Bored of counting likes on social networks? At Styleforum, you’ll find rousing discussions that go beyond strings of emojis.

    Click Here to join Styleforum's thousands of style enthusiasts today!

    Styleforum is supported in part by commission earning affiliate links sitewide. Please support us by using them. You may learn more here.

is this appropriate?

globetrotter

Stylish Dinosaur
Joined
Sep 28, 2004
Messages
20,341
Reaction score
422
co-worker sent out an email today telling many people (I don't know how many, but over a dozen) in the company that yesterday she learned that her father is dieing of cancer, and wrote about 200 words to detail his health situation. she then went on to explain that this is the reason for some of her recent **** ups at work, and to ask for forgiveness for yet to be announced **** ups. while I do, sincierly, sympathize with her, I felt it was a great deal more information than I needed.


any thoughts on this?
 

gdl203

Purveyor of the Secret Sauce
Affiliate Vendor
Dubiously Honored
Supporting Member
Joined
Jun 9, 2005
Messages
45,595
Reaction score
54,357
Sounds like an invitation to talk about it. She may not have friends/family/therapist she can talk to. One/some of the recipients may feel like taking her to lunch/coffee to give her the opportunity to talk about her feelings - others will register the information and move on, while realizing that she's going through a serious personal crisis.
 

GreyFlannelMan

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 12, 2004
Messages
823
Reaction score
1
Too much information, in my opinion. If she wanted to explain her situation, she should have done so privately with her boss or colleagues who might have been affected by her recent screwups.

We all have our personal problems. We all have to learn to deal with them whilst performing our jobs as expected. And if a situation is so bad that it causes us to screw up pretty much everything, then perhaps taking leave is in order....
 

rach2jlc

Prof. Fabulous
Dubiously Honored
Joined
Mar 14, 2006
Messages
14,663
Reaction score
1,162
Originally Posted by gdl203
Sounds like an invitation to talk about it. She may not have friends/family/therapist she can talk to. One/some of the recipients may feel like taking her to lunch/coffee to give her the opportunity to talk about her feelings - others will register the information and move on, while realizing that she's going through a serious personal crisis.
I agree. While I don't necessarily think it appropriate to go into the kind of detail she did, at least it is good that she mentioned it so you can keep it in mind. It doesn't excuse "**** ups" at work, by any means, but it does at least give you that extra bit of awareness so that you can maybe take an extra step in assisting her that normally you wouldn't. As GFM mentions above, if the ****-ups get to the point that it is impacting EVERYBODY's work or the drama becomes too much, then absolutely a leave of absense might be best. You can be sympathetic and understanding all day long, but at the end of the day, it's a place of business and work MUST continue.
 

acidboy

Stylish Dinosaur
Spamminator Moderator
Joined
Mar 13, 2006
Messages
19,672
Reaction score
1,555
No it is absolutely not appropriate. BUT she sounds like she's crying for someone to talk to. I don't know if you would or could talk and listen to her, GT, but it seems that she really needs someone right now. HR should be on top of this.
 

Agnacious

Senior Member
Joined
Jul 20, 2008
Messages
677
Reaction score
4
Bearing in mind that I have been accused of being "the most unsympathetic person on earth", I would say this is entirely inappropriate and frankly smacks of someone looking for a pass on not doing their job. They are making a preemptive strike by sending out this e-mail and will use this as a way to garner sympathy come review time, because after all, you would be horrible to hold non performance due to a dying father against her. Right?

I disagree. I have had similar situations like this one before. I have suggested taking a leave of absence to attend to their situation, or floated hiring temp personal to help take up for the loss of performance. These ideas are never embraced because this is not what the person is looking for.

Either way by this I let the person know indirectly that I expect their job to be done and if they can't do it I can find someone who can. This changes the dynamic of the situation in that the person is now on the defensive and they know they will be judged on the metrics of the job rather than someone that should be given latitude.
 

JayJay

Stylish Dinosaur
Joined
Jun 25, 2007
Messages
24,297
Reaction score
439
Originally Posted by Agnacious
Bearing in mind that I have been accused of being “the most unsympathetic person on earth”, I would say this is entirely inappropriate and frankly smacks of someone looking for a pass on not doing their job. They are making a preemptive strike by sending out this e-mail and will use this as a way to garner sympathy come review time, because after all, you would be horrible to hold non performance due to a dying father against her. Right?

I disagree. I have had similar situations like this one before. I have suggested taking a leave of absence to attend to their situation, or floated hiring temp personal to help take up for the loss of performance. These ideas are never embraced because this is not what the person is looking for.

Either way by this I let the person know indirectly that I expect their job to be done and if they can’t do it I can find someone who can. This changes the dynamic of the situation in that the person is now on the defensive and they know they will be judged on the metrics of the job rather than someone that should be given latitude.

+1. I'm not completely callous, but her approach doesn't work with me. It has the opposite effect.
 

Douglas

Stupid ass member
Spamminator Moderator
Joined
Aug 17, 2007
Messages
14,243
Reaction score
2,166
I suppose I don't know what you mean by "inappropriate."

If you mean "is it a reprimandable offense akin to sending out a dirty Appreciation picture on corporate computers," I say hell no.

If you mean "is it an odd thing to do?" then I say yeah, I would think so.

If you mean "is this something I ought to be concerned about as an employer?" then I say perhaps. If it is a high-performing person who has slipped up a bit more than usual lately and sent this to a few close co-workers, I'd let it slide. If this is part of a pattern of behavior by a subpar employer then yes it is an issue. In other words, its an issue within a certain context, but I wouldn't think so if it is an isolated thing.
 

danyllau

Senior Member
Joined
May 1, 2008
Messages
218
Reaction score
0
Not appropriate... I am against "attention whores", so I may be a bit biased. It sounds like the company and your team is not small too.
 

Piobaire

Not left of center?
Joined
Dec 5, 2006
Messages
81,723
Reaction score
63,071
Certainly no appropriate and as acidicboy first said above, HR needs to be all over that.
 

Edward Appleby

Distinguished Member
Joined
Apr 18, 2005
Messages
3,162
Reaction score
5
Seems to me that if she was going to bring the situation up at all, it should have been on a personal basis. If she has a limited working relationship with one of the "victims" of her fuckups, she should just apologize and leave it at that. For people that she's on somewhat more familiar terms with, she could bring up the reason for her failures, ala "My father hasn't been well lately", then if people feel it's appropriate they can discuss it further. Either way, a mass email detailing her father's illness doesn't really seem appropriate.
 

SField

Distinguished Member
Joined
Oct 19, 2008
Messages
6,139
Reaction score
24
Originally Posted by globetrotter
co-worker sent out an email today telling many people (I don't know how many, but over a dozen) in the company that yesterday she learned that her father is dieing of cancer, and wrote about 200 words to detail his health situation. she then went on to explain that this is the reason for some of her recent **** ups at work, and to ask for forgiveness for yet to be announced **** ups. while I do, sincierly, sympathize with her, I felt it was a great deal more information than I needed.


any thoughts on this?


In a professional situation you are right, it is too much information. In office politics it was a horrible move and yes, by current standards in the work place it was innapropriate. However, consider this on a larger human level. I think it calls for compassion and understanding. It's important to sometimes be able to remove oneself from the immediate situation (in this case, the office and it's culture/politics and social norms), and look at it from a larger perspective.

Existentially, is what she did bad? No, not at all.
 

sho'nuff

grrrrrrrr!!
Joined
Apr 15, 2006
Messages
22,000
Reaction score
40
Originally Posted by globetrotter
co-worker sent out an email today telling many people (I don't know how many, but over a dozen) in the company that yesterday she learned that her father is dieing of cancer, and wrote about 200 words to detail his health situation. she then went on to explain that this is the reason for some of her recent **** ups at work, and to ask for forgiveness for yet to be announced **** ups. while I do, sincierly, sympathize with her, I felt it was a great deal more information than I needed.


any thoughts on this?


not appropriate at all. she needs to learn some discretion.
 

acidboy

Stylish Dinosaur
Spamminator Moderator
Joined
Mar 13, 2006
Messages
19,672
Reaction score
1,555
Guess she won't be welcome to the company Christmas party then.
 

Featured Sponsor

How important is full vs half canvas to you for heavier sport jackets?

  • Definitely full canvas only

    Votes: 55 36.4%
  • Half canvas is fine

    Votes: 59 39.1%
  • Really don't care

    Votes: 16 10.6%
  • Depends on fabric

    Votes: 26 17.2%
  • Depends on price

    Votes: 26 17.2%

Forum statistics

Threads
505,152
Messages
10,578,806
Members
223,881
Latest member
Aitchdra
Top